NASCAR: Will Joey Logano bounce back in 2018?

After an extremely disappointing 2017 season, will Joey Logano be able to bounce back in the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series campaign?

Nine races into the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series season, Team Penske’s Joey Logano, the driver of the #22 Ford, was on a roll. He looked unstoppable. Through those nine races, he had secured eight top 6 finishes, six top 5 finishes, two podium finishes and a win at Richmond.

That win at Richmond looked like it was going to send Logano, now 27, to the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season. He looked poised to contend for the championship after finishing runner-up to seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson the season before.

However, that win was encumbered and would not count to get him into the playoffs. After this announcement, Logano immediately turned cold, and his results were nowhere near what they were throughout the season’s first nine races.

Over the next five races, he failed to finish in the top 20. In the 11 races after that, he finished higher than 12th place just three times. He needed to win the final race of the regular season at Richmond to get into the playoffs. To pretty much sum up his season, he finished in 2nd.

More from NASCAR

However, in the playoffs, Logano ended up picking up some momentum with five top 10 finishes in 10 races, and he ended up finishing in 17th place in the championship standings, which was the highest among non-playoff drivers. Will he be able to use that momentum to bounce back in the 2018 season?

If there is anyone capable of having a bounce-back season after a season full of disappointment, it is Joey Logano. In his four years at Team Penske prior to the 2017 season, he had never finished lower than 8th place in the championship standings. He finished 8th in 2013 with one win, 4th in 2014 with five wins, 6th in 2015 with six wins and 2nd in 2016 with three wins.

After his worst season since coming to Team Penske in his fifth career full-time Cup Series season back in 2013, Logano certainly has what it takes to have a successful 2018 campaign despite the fact that he enters the season on a 27-race win drought.

His success in recent years prior to the 2017 season shows this, as it is highly unlikely that he will have back-to-back awful seasons, especially since he was able to pick up some momentum down the stretch last year.

When it comes down to it, him coming one position away from winning the second Richmond race may have made the difference in terms of him competing for last year’s championship, and that’s even with how awful his results were throughout the majority of the season.

Here is what Logano had to say about potentially bouncing back in the 2018 season after recalling his disappointment from the 2017 season, according to NASCAR.com.

"“I think we will go out there and redeem ourselves. There is a little extra motivation there. We know we are a championship team. Nothing has changed from two years ago when we almost won the championship. It is the same group. Nothing has changed. We know we can still do that. Let’s go. Is Daytona here yet?”"

Next: Top 10 NASCAR drivers of all-time

Will Joey Logano have a bounce-back season in 2018, or will he be in for more disappointment? See how the season begins for he and the rest of the NASCAR Cup Series field by tuning in to the 60th annual Daytona 500 on Sunday, February 18th.

Home/NASCAR